Arthur and the School Pet

Written
by Marc Brown

Reviewed by Petter P (age 8)

A girl named D.W. gets a gerbil named Speedy from school. She takes it home on Christmas. She leaves the gerbil right next to the Christmas tree. Arthur gives him cheese and he goes up on the Christmas tree. The next day, everyone couldn’t find him. Then Arthur found him on top of the Christmas tree. Then they start finding him everywhere! They found him in the carrot cake, D.W.’s dollhouse, and Arthur’s boot. D.W. said she was going to give Speedy a bath. When she said “bath,” Speedy ran away. Then they looked everywhere and they couldn’t find him. Then when D.W. went to sleep she found him under her sheet. The teacher asked, “was Speedy trouble?” and she said “No.”

I think this book is so weird because why would you get a Gerbil in Christmas? The gerbil is so stupid because it doesn’t even know where it’s going. It’s just going everywhere and everywhere. It keeps going to the same place every day. He doesn’t like doing tricks, he just wants cheese. I think he did a so-so job on the illustrations. It was bad because he made the gerbil’s food different colors on different pages. I think the book was not funny. It was corny. I would tell Marc Brown to not put any more gerbils in his books anymore.

I recommend this book to Brian because he likes gerbils and he likes to carry them everywhere, even to his job. I would recommend this book to kindergarteners because they like read alouds. They would think it is interesting. I would not recommend this book to people who like Christmas because then they are going to go crazy and think that it is Christmas everyday. I would recommend this book to Nora because she likes aardvark with clothes on and hair.